


with words unspoken, and a silent devotion

by vindice



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hints of a possible possession, Implied thatchizo, M/M, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 05:39:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11753199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vindice/pseuds/vindice
Summary: Marco couldn't sleep, but maybe he just needed to let all he had bottled up inside him out.And a visit from a certain ghost.





	with words unspoken, and a silent devotion

**Author's Note:**

> [✿](https://youtu.be/an4ySOlsUMY) [✿](https://youtu.be/WIPVSrkXugs)  
>  It's gonna be 6 in the morning and I haven't batted an eye to sleep, please go easy on me. Unbetaed.

Marco chose to stop sleeping for a while when he noticed it wouldn't affect him that much if only he took naps at least once a day.

The days after Marineford, the ship was filled with things to do. There was always something more important than that, what with his new position and all.

He made sure to give as much proper burial to all the fallen ones as they could in one of the islands they had. He checked on everyone who was left behind. He comforted anyone he could. He tried to work on documents they needed, new positions they had, and anything the ship seemed to miss.

He had his siblings’ help and he was thankful for it, but he tried not to rely on them unless strictly necessary, because as much as they tried to hide it, he knew they were all as affected as he was.

 

* * *

 

It wasn't until weeks later, when he decided to try and conciliate sleep again, that he found he couldn't. Because any time he did it, memories would haunt him.

Everyone knew Marco didn't torture himself: he was no martyr, he didn't keep himself stuck in the past. But even so, he knew his brothers were worried, and mostly Izo, was catching up on him and what was going on in his mind.

And that's why when a light kimono caught the corner of his eye, appearing next to him in the deck at midnight while he was on watch, it didn't surprise him at all.

A solace tacitly masked when his gaze settled in the horizon, not really watching but remembering, if the unfocused look was anything to go by. Marco got the sign, and he was grateful for having him as his brother not for the first time in his life.

Staring through half-lidded eyes, his mind went back to the day they lost Thatch. The way Izo held himself high and unwavering as he comforted their siblings about losing one of their own, just like now. Never allowing the others to see any weakness until Marco himself, being Marco, saw right through the cracks and past the hints of what he was really going through.

He remembered watching him drop to his knees after everyone went to sleep; shaky hands hovering over his heart and muffled sobs in trembling lips as he broke down in front of him.

Back then he thought he did – because they both loved Thatch, and maybe it wasn't the same way but he was equally important to the two of them – but he was sure _just now_ he understood how Izo had felt, and Marco had a new sense of respect for how he'd lived since that day.

He had always been a silent comfort to him. He always carried a quiet plea to the sky and the sea, and today was one to watch over the two whose smiles were taken away from them.

With the gentle company of his brother next to him, he tried to think of his current situation. He couldn't forget. He knew he didn't _want_ to forget: Pops had given Marco everything he ever longed for. A father, a chance, a life, a family, _freedom and kindness_. Ace had been so deep under his skin for so long, filling him with a strong and kind emotion so different from the one their siblings gave to them, that he wouldn't be surprised if he was inside him at this point.

Marco didn't want to know how it happened, and even if he did, he wouldn't know when his own metaphorical blood started mixing with Ace’s, or where each of them started or where it ended.

At some point, between the soft smiles and the long goodbyes and the hearts skipping a beat when they waited for each other to come back home, they became one as the fire that ran through their veins, as the fire that once wrapped their hands, as the fire that they had the opportunity to feel every time their foreheads touched.

 

* * *

 

Perhaps this was how Izo had felt after Thatch: his mind filled with so much left unsaid but with an undeniable devotion to the ghost of a memory.

 

* * *

 

Marco didn't sleep, because when he did, reminiscence came in parts, sometimes one right after another in dreams. Flashbacks rushed through his mind in a way that hit him hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs.

Once, he saw brown eyes shining up at him under the moonlight, a mocking glint for something he couldn't quite grab a hold of, but there was also so much tenderness in that look that he could almost feel the longing and the other unexpressed emotions just by looking at them. In another, there was tanned skin glistening with sweat and sweet nothings whispered into someone’s ear, and his chest tightened for some reason.

Some days he would see a bouncy head thrown back and squinted eyes, freckled face full of light with the corners of a mouth turned upwards, an orange hat around a neck and he could quite hear a laugh but not really. Then there was short long hair dancing with the wind and sea salt in the air, and even if it was all simply images with someone else’s past he was sure he almost heard and smelt and felt all of the things these memories were trying to make him keep.

And he held onto them, the same way he tightly held the worn and battered orange hat against his chest every time he went to bed.

 

* * *

 

Marco hadn't had the time to grieve. It had been three months, and it honestly surprised him how much he had endured.

The day he couldn't hold any longer, Marco left Vista in charge until he were back, not really saying where he was going to in the first place. He took his Phoenix form, hitched a backpack between his claws, and took flight into the highest of the sky.

The fresh air against his face and wings had little relief and comfort against the heavy feeling burning in his chest. Marco felt his heart shatter and his stomach sink, and he had to repeat _you're almost there, you're almost there_ like a mantra in his mind to avoid going down from that height, until he found the island he was looking for.

Once he was in front of their graves, he shifted to his human self before greeting them with a strangled voice and getting out the sake he carried in the backpack. Marco closed his eyes and allowed himself, for the first time in weeks, to _really_ feel.

He collapsed to his knees, one hand in Ace’s grave and the other on his Father’s, hunched shoulders and eyes closed tightly, while sobs threatened to choke him in his failed attempt to stop them of falling from his lips and the tears burned behind his eyelids, until he gave up and freely cried.

He cried, and cried, _and cried_.

He did it until the void in his heart and the pain in his soul were temporarily numb, until his mind felt tricked enough to think there were no more tears left.

Hours later, when he got back to the ship, Izo just hugged him and got him a tea. If the others noticed something, they didn't say.

Once again, he felt blessed for having them in his life.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, when he was on watch, he could hear the ghost of a laugh or feel the presence of a caress, and he would bring his hand over his heart and smile but he would never say a word to anyone else.

 

* * *

 

It was only after half a year later, when Marco got the opportunity to visit the graves again, that he found a blonde already there.

“Who are _you_ , and what are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same,” not startled in the slightest, the other person answered. Marco assumed he had observation Haki.

“This is property of the Whitebeard Pirates, so I don't think you're in good position to ask me anything, yoi.” He said calmly.

“Oh…” The blonde said, and he seemed to hesitate at that. “So you were part of my brother’s crew.”

Marco stilled, taken aback.

“Your… brother?”

And it began.

 

* * *

 

The guy introduced himself as Sabo, who he was, what had happened when Ace and Luffy and him were kids, and how he had been coming to the grave since the day he was told there was one. Marco wondered for a second _who_ and _how_ could he been informed, since no one besides the members of the crew knew about the island.

But Marco listened, making sure to absorb this new information, that little part of Ace’s past he already knew but this time with more details, and he felt that heavy weight settling in his heart again at the sudden thought that Ace would have liked to introduce them both to each other if he ever got the chance.

“I… also can, uhm,” Sabo cleared his throat before continuing. “You might not believe me, but I can, kind of talk with Ace.”

Marco stared at him, and tried to decipher if this was some sort of joke, or if he was serious. By the determined look on his face, Marco could only give it a chance to whatever this kid was about to say.

Then Sabo started telling how he went for the Mera Mera, how he ate it, and that he could now feel Ace alive within him. How it was Ace himself who told him the location of this place and that he said it was nice seeing Marco again. Marco then asked how it was possible, and Sabo told him that was probably because when he ate the fruit it wasn't that long since what had happened to Ace. Besides, there was the fact that the freckled boy was as stubborn as Luffy and that it was most likely he clung into this life somehow, that maybe he had something left, some business he couldn't finish in this realm.

Marco thought to himself that it kind of made sense, since weirder things had happened. And it did sound like Ace; a stubborn, hotheaded free spirit that would die with a smile on his face but wouldn't give up if he forgot or didn't get the chance to do something.

He felt a lump in his throat, and he held back a sob.

Once Sabo left, Marco mourned again that day, and although his heart still ached, it somehow was a little less painful.

This time, he went home feeling a little bit lighter, because his soulmate wasn't completely gone after all. He went home and told Izo, and Izo in exchange of this little token of trust, told him about Thatch and how he still felt him around from time to time.

 

* * *

 

A few weeks after that, Sabo sat next to him in the middle of the night at the crow's nest. It was quiet for a while, and he hadn't had this kind of calm in so long, but he knew the younger wanted to say something. Perhaps needed to sort things out with Marco if they wanted this to work.

“I'm not him, you know?” He said softly, and it was somehow relieving to be able to hear – _to think_ about Ace without a lump in his throat threatening to choke him. For the first time in months, Marco wasn't sad when he remembered him; this once it felt as if he was really giving himself another chance to live.

He was finally keeping up his part of an unspoken promise, doing what Ace did back then.

Marco let the silence carry on between them, before he took a shaky breath to answer. “I'm well aware of it,” he said. “There's no one like Ace.”

It didn't surprise him the way it left his mouth, how sincere and full of affection his words were. A small wistful smile settled on his lips, crestfallen eyes looked up at the darkened sky, and he couldn't help but think about him again.

He thought of linked hands at midnight in winter seasons and galaxies within a pair of eyes, stars scattered across cheeks and dimples molded around crescent moons.

He missed him deeply, and he was sure that feeling would never leave him completely, but right now he felt more mentally prepared for what was coming next. He had always been the mature one, after all.

“And you don't need to be him, yoi,” he continued. “You don't have to visit either, if you don't want to. Just because you can feel him inside you it doesn't mean you are tied to me somehow because of the bonds he and I share.” The _because we still do_ , left unsaid. He couldn't bring himself to say the words _we had_ when it came to Ace.

Sabo looked at him surprised, his gaze saddening slightly and a rueful smile played on his lips, dropped softly around the edges.

“I want to visit, don't get me wrong,” he hastily said. “I just wanted to make that clear.”

“It's fine, yoi.”

The silence returned, but it was now more comfortable. They sat next to each other, just looking at the sky and nothing in particular, until Sabo broke it again.

“He talks about you, you know?” he said quietly.

Marco froze, but then relaxed his shoulders again. “Does he now?” He said smiling, staring at him through the corner of his eye.

“Yeah, he does…” Sabo breathed. “Not with words, though. It's kind of hard to explain. More like, feelings? But I somehow can hear them, like, in my heart.”

Marco chuckled. “And what does he say?”

“That he misses you.”

His stomach sunk, and he could feel a stabbing in his chest. Marco didn't know what he was expecting, but it surely wasn't this.

“I miss him too, yoi,” he whispered almost too quickly. “Tell him I say that.”

“He kind of can hear that too. It's as if he was this spirit that comes and goes… he's in the back of my mind sometimes, like now,” Sabo sighed. “He says you shouldn't use that face.”

He blinked. “Which face?”

Sabo smiled softly, and it resembled so painfully Ace’s that he wondered if it was him right now.

“The one you put when you're feeling upset.” 

 

* * *

 

After Sabo went to sleep in one of the spare cabins and someone took his shift, Marco went to his own bedroom. He went to bed suddenly tired, and that night after a long time, he dreamt again.

He dreamt of starry eyes, and big smiles, and someone visiting his room.

“I didn't mean to make you sad.”

Marco opened his mouth to protest, but settled for saying something else. Perhaps just this time, he would allow to let his guard down in his sleep, just for a little bit. He collected himself, and said. “I love you, little Star. And I miss you so, so much, yoi. I'm not sad. It hurts, but I'm not sad. Or at least not as much as I used to be.”

“I love you too, and I'm so sorry,” Ace said mournfully.

“You don't have to apologize. I would've done the same for any of our siblings.”

“You're not angry?” He asked, and his voice was nothing like Ace. So small, as if he were in uncharted territory. It felt _wrong_.

“Not anymore,” Marco said honestly. “I used to be, but not at you, hm. Neither you or Pops deserved that, and although I don't think I would ever be okay, it's getting better.”

“I'm always with you, and he is too, okay?”

Marco smiled softly, half-lidded eyes. “I know. I sometimes can feel you, can hear his laugh. I thought I was going insane but then Izo took me aside, talked about Thatch.”

“Thatch…” Ace said wistfully. “I hope I can see him again, I want to apologize for what that asshole did to him.”

“Oi, it wasn't your fault, yoi.” He frowned. “Your brother is going to give him a piece of his mind, and I'm certainly not letting him go unharmed if I ever come across him.”

“I know,” Ace smiled. “You're always so calm, but when it comes to things like that, you are worse than me.”

“Says the little ball of rage.”

They laughed. It was good, having something like this again, even if it was just for a bit.

“I love you, Birdbrain.” Ace said fondly.

“I love you too, sweetheart.” Marco moved a little on his bed so he could kiss him, and Ace obliged.

It was chaste, and they smiled into it. His heart squeezed.

“It's time to rise, sunshine.” The younger sing-sang.

Marco felt his chest heavy. “Take care of yourself.” He said lamely.

Ace chuckled. “That should be me saying it.”

They stared into each other's eyes, not quite wanting to let go.

“It's alright, Mar. We will see each other again,” He sighed contentedly, eyes shining bright just like when he was alive. “I'm gonna to be with you for as long as you want me to, and I'm going to keep visiting like this once in awhile.”

Marco was about to say that there was no way for him to not want to see those freckles again, that he will always love him and it would be impossible for him to ever want Ace to go unless he was the one who wished for it—but he suddenly found himself awake, staring at the ceiling.

He smiled.

 _That's okay_ , he thought. For now, that was enough. They would meet again.

**Author's Note:**

> I really love this pairing and they break my heart as much as they make me happy. <3 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
